Elizabethtown  While the signatures are pending, the Essex County Board of Supervisors is still in charge of the Horace Nye Nursing Home.

The board voted on several resolutions pertaining to the soon-to-be-sold facility during its Feb. 7 regular board meeting, including the transfer of up to $20,000 from the contingency fund to the Horace Nye equipment account for the purchase of needed equipment, including beds.

The county contingency fund stood at $200,000 as of Jan. 1

“The nursing home runs in the red constantly, so there is really no place that you can go other than contingency,” Moriah Supervisor and county Finance Chair Tom Scozzafava said. “If you do not do that, then you are just shuffling the cards around. The fact of the matter is we are still in the nursing home business and we need those beds.”

Supervisors asked if there would be a way to recoup the cost of the beds after the home was sold.

“Is there a chance that any of these items could be surplus after the sale of the home?” Essex Supervisor Sharon Boisen said.

Both County Attorney Daniel Manning and County Manager Daniel Palmer said that the beds would go with the home in the sale.

“I am suggesting a phone call to these people saying we need to replace these things, can we work something out here,” Westport Supervisor Daniel Connell said. “They are going to have to buy these things anyhow when they come in. It does not seem to make any sense to buy new beds that they may turn around and throw out in six to eight months.”

Elizabethtown Supervisor Margaret Bartley agreed, saying that the beds that the potential buyer, Centers for Specialty Care, use are custom-made for them and that the county would be buying beds that would not be used by the new owners.